If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Lens advice, please
I have looked through a lot of NGs but could not find one that seemed
to give the kind of advice I am looking for, so I hoped that someone here might be able to help. I am very new to digital SLR photography and bought a Canon 300D a few months ago (couldn`t afford a better one, alas), together with a 75-300mm f4-5.6 IS USB lens. I am most interested in wildlife photography, especially dragon/damselflies and birds. However, I find that I am not getting good, clear, shots with this lens at 300mm, either with or without a tripod (I know to turn off the IS with the tripod). Even at that zoom, in order to fill the resulting picture with the subject I am having to crop the image, after resampling. I then have to sharpen them which exaggerates noise and chromatic aberrations. It is very frustrating. The question I specifically wanted to ask is this : bearing in mind the quality of the Canon body, would I get much better results if I invested in an L series Canon lens - say, the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM? Many thanks Kate |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Kate wrote:
I have looked through a lot of NGs but could not find one that seemed to give the kind of advice I am looking for, so I hoped that someone here might be able to help. I am very new to digital SLR photography and bought a Canon 300D a few months ago (couldn`t afford a better one, alas) It's a good one. Don't feel bad about the choice. , together with a 75-300mm f4-5.6 IS USB lens. I am most interested in wildlife photography, especially dragon/damselflies and birds. However, I find that I am not getting good, clear, shots with this lens at 300mm, either with or without a tripod (I know to turn off the IS with the tripod). Even at that zoom, in order to fill the resulting picture with the subject I am having to crop the image, Is this due to not being able to focus close enough or not being able to get close enough to the subject? I think this is where you need to focus your attention. You want to be able to take advantage of the entire sensor. If you need to crop you are dumbing down your camera. I don't think you have a quality issue with either the body or the lens. after resampling. I then have to sharpen them which exaggerates noise and chromatic aberrations. It is very frustrating. The question I specifically wanted to ask is this : bearing in mind the quality of the Canon body, would I get much better results if I invested in an L series Canon lens - say, the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM? Many thanks Kate -- Joseph Meehan 26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Kate wrote:
I am very new to digital SLR photography and bought a Canon 300D a few months ago (couldn`t afford a better one, alas), together with a 75-300mm f4-5.6 IS USB lens. I am most interested in wildlife photography, especially dragon/damselflies and birds. However, I find that I am not getting good, clear, shots with this lens at 300mm, either with or without a tripod (I know to turn off the IS with the tripod). Even at that zoom, in order to fill the resulting picture with the subject I am having to crop the image, after resampling. I then have to sharpen them which exaggerates noise and chromatic aberrations. If you have to crop, then a longer lens should certainly help. Are you certain it is lack of sharpness in the lens? Sharpening is usually needed for all digital images. Noise might not be as bad as it looks on screen when printed, there are software solutions for the chromatic abberation & noise reduction. It's possible you could get a little better results shooting raw with dcraw converter can be a little less antialiasing softness added (but more noise). It is very frustrating. The question I specifically wanted to ask is this : bearing in mind the quality of the Canon body, I don't think that body is hurting you, unless you have several thousand more to spend for full frame. You will be able to tell the difference in a better lens even at 6MP. If your lens is soft, more MP won't help. would I get much better results if I invested in an L series Canon lens - say, the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM? I'm getting much better results with a much better telephoto on a Nikon D70. Mine was a more dramatic change though from a $350 28-200 3.5-5.6 which is not sharp at 200 & has bad bokeh with all but the softest backgrounds to a $1,600 70-200 2.8 VR. Then a 2x teleconverter turns that into a 400/5.6 & a +2 diopter lets it do macro. It is nice to have the option of f/2.8 without the teleconverter & the lens is good enough quality to be doubled in zoom. The blur is beautifully soft and it is definitely sharper. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
"Joseph Meehan" wrote in message ... Kate wrote: I have looked through a lot of NGs but could not find one that seemed to give the kind of advice I am looking for, so I hoped that someone here might be able to help. I am very new to digital SLR photography and bought a Canon 300D a few months ago (couldn`t afford a better one, alas) It's a good one. Don't feel bad about the choice. , together with a 75-300mm f4-5.6 IS USB lens. I am most interested in wildlife photography, especially dragon/damselflies and birds. However, I find that I am not getting good, clear, shots with this lens at 300mm, either with or without a tripod (I know to turn off the IS with the tripod). Even at that zoom, in order to fill the resulting picture with the subject I am having to crop the image, Is this due to not being able to focus close enough or not being able to get close enough to the subject? I think this is where you need to focus your attention. You want to be able to take advantage of the entire sensor. If you need to crop you are dumbing down your camera. I don't think you have a quality issue with either the body or the lens. after resampling. I then have to sharpen them which exaggerates noise and chromatic aberrations. It is very frustrating. The question I specifically wanted to ask is this : bearing in mind the quality of the Canon body, would I get much better results if I invested in an L series Canon lens - say, the 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM? Many thanks Kate -- Joseph Meehan 26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. As the odonata aren`t about yet in this part of the world, I have been concentrating on birds. I have built a hide but the closest I can get it to the feeders in the garden is about 18 feet, so the birds are but a small part of the image as a whole. That is why I crop. I have experimented, and when I stand about 8 ft away, images are sharper in the camera view screen and I would only have to crop the sides a little. Unfortunately, the birds won`t let me get that close! I have set the camera up so that the centre spot is where I want the focus, using Tv mode, and have also tried some of the pre-set modes. When it comes to the odonata season, I had hoped that I would be able to get good shots of them from several yards away, as, inevitably, they will perch in inaccessible places. Previously, using a Nikon CoolPix 4500, I had to wait until they perched nearby and then sneak up on them. I did get lots of good, sharp, shots that only needed minimal sharpening (they still needed cropping, but not so much), but missed many that I might have got with a zoom or telephoto lens. I know that with telephotos you get a very shallow depth of field, but with the 75-300mm at 300 it is so shallow I can get a bird`s beak in focus, but not the feet. I think there may be something that I am doing wrong or not doing at all, but cannot think what it might be. Any suggestions would be very helpful, please. I really don`t want to spend over £1K on a lens and find that, after all, it is my technique that is at fault. Paul : I have downloaded a demo version of Dfine v.1.0, which not only removes noise but jpeg artifacts as well but it does seem to soften the images too much. I have tried converting the images to Lab mode and blurring the magenta and cyan channels, but then I get left with black speckles. I have also tried using RAW but didn`t notice much improvement. As I have been using continuous rather than single-shot mode, there was also the problem of the time it took to send them to the CF card. Thank you again Kate |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Kate wrote:
.. The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. As the odonata aren`t about yet in this part of the world, I have been concentrating on birds. I have built a hide but the closest I can get it to the feeders in the garden is about 18 feet, so the birds are but a small part of the image as a whole. That is why I crop. .. I do feel for you. I have the same problem, but I am not yet ready to spend the kind of money I would need to get a lens long enough and fast enough to get to job done. Your primary problem is you need to crop too much. Your suggested solutions will not help enough to be worth the cost. You are going to be spending a 2 or more thousand £. to get what you need. -- Joseph Meehan 26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Kate wrote:
The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. Have you considered using a teleconverter? B&H carries them: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ar&A=search&Q= You'll lose light using one and your autofocus may not function. Personally, I almost never use autofocus with a long lens anyway. Quite a bit cheaper than buying another lens though. Paul : I have downloaded a demo version of Dfine v.1.0, which not only removes noise but jpeg artifacts as well but it does seem to soften the images too much. I have tried converting the images to Lab mode and blurring the magenta and cyan channels, but then I get left with black speckles. I have also tried using RAW but didn`t notice much improvement. As I have been using continuous rather than single-shot mode, there was also the problem of the time it took to send them to the CF card. Paint Shop Pro 9 has a Digital Camera Noise Removal filter that works wonders. It does take some skill to use the filter properly. I do have ..pdfs on both DCNR and the Chromatic Aberration Removal filter if you decide to download the PSP9 demo. They're rather large, as .pdfs usually are, but I could email them to you if you wanted to see them. -- Angela M. Cable Paint Shop Pro 9 Private Beta Tester Neocognition, digital scrapbooking source: http://www.neocognition.com/ PSP Tutorial Links: http://www.psplinks.com/ 5th Street Studio, free graphics, websets and mo http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/alaia/354/ |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Kate wrote:
The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. Have you considered using a teleconverter? B&H carries them: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ar&A=search&Q= You'll lose light using one and your autofocus may not function. Personally, I almost never use autofocus with a long lens anyway. Quite a bit cheaper than buying another lens though. Paul : I have downloaded a demo version of Dfine v.1.0, which not only removes noise but jpeg artifacts as well but it does seem to soften the images too much. I have tried converting the images to Lab mode and blurring the magenta and cyan channels, but then I get left with black speckles. I have also tried using RAW but didn`t notice much improvement. As I have been using continuous rather than single-shot mode, there was also the problem of the time it took to send them to the CF card. Paint Shop Pro 9 has a Digital Camera Noise Removal filter that works wonders. It does take some skill to use the filter properly. I do have ..pdfs on both DCNR and the Chromatic Aberration Removal filter if you decide to download the PSP9 demo. They're rather large, as .pdfs usually are, but I could email them to you if you wanted to see them. -- Angela M. Cable Paint Shop Pro 9 Private Beta Tester Neocognition, digital scrapbooking source: http://www.neocognition.com/ PSP Tutorial Links: http://www.psplinks.com/ 5th Street Studio, free graphics, websets and mo http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/alaia/354/ |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
"Kate" wrote in
: The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. As the odonata aren`t about yet in this part of the world, I have been concentrating on birds. I have built a hide but the closest I can get it to the feeders in the garden is about 18 feet, so the birds are but a small part of the image as a whole. That is why I crop. I have experimented, and when I stand about 8 ft away, images are sharper in the camera view screen and I would only have to crop the sides a little. Unfortunately, the birds won`t let me get that close! I have set the camera up so that the centre spot is where I want the focus, using Tv mode, and have also tried some of the pre-set modes. When it comes to the odonata season, I had hoped that I would be able to get good shots of them from several yards away, as, inevitably, they will perch in inaccessible places. Previously, using a Nikon CoolPix 4500, I had to wait until they perched nearby and then sneak up on them. I did get lots of good, sharp, shots that only needed minimal sharpening (they still needed cropping, but not so much), but missed many that I might have got with a zoom or telephoto lens. I know that with telephotos you get a very shallow depth of field, but with the 75-300mm at 300 it is so shallow I can get a bird`s beak in focus, but not the feet. I think there may be something that I am doing wrong or not doing at all, but cannot think what it might be. Any suggestions would be very helpful, please. I really don`t want to spend over £1K on a lens and find that, after all, it is my technique that is at fault. The 75-300 softens a little bit at the 300mm end, and this is typical of most zooms. However, it usually sharpens up if you're using an aperture of f11 or f16. Which will also help your depth of field. As the aperture is reduced in size (the f-number increasing), your depth of field will increase. Small errors in focus can also be compensated for in this way. The problem this leads to is that your shutter speed will become even slower. The IS in the lens will assist this, but I'd recommend using a tripod instead. This may lead to a couple of additional problems: 1. The subject is moving faster than the shutter speed will be able to catch sharply. Not much you can do about this, except try to get more light on your subject. 2. If the camera is on a setting allowing it to choose the ISO, it may be defaulting down to a high speed such as 800 or 1600, which will increase image noise by a considerable amount. I would suggest setting ISO within the range of 100-400, which should keep image quality higher. But this means the shutter speed may remain slow... And that's the problem of nature photographers everywhere :-(. Trust me, I deal with this all the time. Eventually, you seek subjects that you can exploit better. Or start looking at using strobes, especially with extenders or multiple strobes set up around your subject for more natural- looking light... At greater distances or with smaller subjects, don't trust autofocus. The focus sensor may be either not accurate enough, or the subject so small that the sensor isn't getting the subject at all, but the background. Go with manual focus, and if the subject is close, use your Depth Of Field Preview on the 300D to examine the subject for necessary focus (another fun thing to do, since the viewfinder will darken down when you do this). As for getting closer focus, an inexpensive set of extension tubes will shorten the close-focusing distance of that lens (which is just under 2 meters, right?). They have no lens elements so will not effect the image quality, nor is it required to go with expensive or OEM makes - however, they *will* reduce the light a little bit, like closing down the aperture another stop. I have a set of three Kenkos that work just fine with every lens I own, including the non-IS version of your lens. Do a websearch on macro work and you'll learn more about extension tubes. Sharpening: Try converting to LAB and selecting the Brighness channel, and sharpen within that only. What this does is adjust contrast only in brights and darks, and not the contrast between different colors, and works much better for sharpening without increasing noise at all. View the results at 200% and watch high contrast areas - if 'halos' appear, you're going too far, so back off some. Noise can be treated a couple of different ways. You know about blurring within color channels, which can help, but try it in different image modes like RGB or CMYK too - noise differs from camera to camera, and some sensors tend to favor green noise over red, for instance. Additionally, you can select the color itself that gives you the worst problems and blur that (I usually prefer the Noise/Median command in Photoshop for this, rather than any of the Blurring), or select the color where the noise is most visible within, like dark greys, and Median *that* instead. In other words, don't treat the color of the noise, but the color it's most visible within, which usually leaves the detail areas of your image alone. Again in Photoshop, you can select a color range like dark grey, but then use the polygonal lassoo tool and hold down the Alt key to *Deselect* key areas of the image, where you want to retain the most detail. Also look into using the History Brush, which will convert key areas back to original appearance before you started alterations. So what happens is, you blur out the noise, but then wipe the detail areas with the History Brush to restore them, and only them, to the starting point. That may give you an edge in a couple of areas - hope it helps. Good luck! - Al. -- To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
"Kate" wrote in
: The problem could be that I cannot get close enough to the subject. As the odonata aren`t about yet in this part of the world, I have been concentrating on birds. I have built a hide but the closest I can get it to the feeders in the garden is about 18 feet, so the birds are but a small part of the image as a whole. That is why I crop. I have experimented, and when I stand about 8 ft away, images are sharper in the camera view screen and I would only have to crop the sides a little. Unfortunately, the birds won`t let me get that close! I have set the camera up so that the centre spot is where I want the focus, using Tv mode, and have also tried some of the pre-set modes. When it comes to the odonata season, I had hoped that I would be able to get good shots of them from several yards away, as, inevitably, they will perch in inaccessible places. Previously, using a Nikon CoolPix 4500, I had to wait until they perched nearby and then sneak up on them. I did get lots of good, sharp, shots that only needed minimal sharpening (they still needed cropping, but not so much), but missed many that I might have got with a zoom or telephoto lens. I know that with telephotos you get a very shallow depth of field, but with the 75-300mm at 300 it is so shallow I can get a bird`s beak in focus, but not the feet. I think there may be something that I am doing wrong or not doing at all, but cannot think what it might be. Any suggestions would be very helpful, please. I really don`t want to spend over £1K on a lens and find that, after all, it is my technique that is at fault. The 75-300 softens a little bit at the 300mm end, and this is typical of most zooms. However, it usually sharpens up if you're using an aperture of f11 or f16. Which will also help your depth of field. As the aperture is reduced in size (the f-number increasing), your depth of field will increase. Small errors in focus can also be compensated for in this way. The problem this leads to is that your shutter speed will become even slower. The IS in the lens will assist this, but I'd recommend using a tripod instead. This may lead to a couple of additional problems: 1. The subject is moving faster than the shutter speed will be able to catch sharply. Not much you can do about this, except try to get more light on your subject. 2. If the camera is on a setting allowing it to choose the ISO, it may be defaulting down to a high speed such as 800 or 1600, which will increase image noise by a considerable amount. I would suggest setting ISO within the range of 100-400, which should keep image quality higher. But this means the shutter speed may remain slow... And that's the problem of nature photographers everywhere :-(. Trust me, I deal with this all the time. Eventually, you seek subjects that you can exploit better. Or start looking at using strobes, especially with extenders or multiple strobes set up around your subject for more natural- looking light... At greater distances or with smaller subjects, don't trust autofocus. The focus sensor may be either not accurate enough, or the subject so small that the sensor isn't getting the subject at all, but the background. Go with manual focus, and if the subject is close, use your Depth Of Field Preview on the 300D to examine the subject for necessary focus (another fun thing to do, since the viewfinder will darken down when you do this). As for getting closer focus, an inexpensive set of extension tubes will shorten the close-focusing distance of that lens (which is just under 2 meters, right?). They have no lens elements so will not effect the image quality, nor is it required to go with expensive or OEM makes - however, they *will* reduce the light a little bit, like closing down the aperture another stop. I have a set of three Kenkos that work just fine with every lens I own, including the non-IS version of your lens. Do a websearch on macro work and you'll learn more about extension tubes. Sharpening: Try converting to LAB and selecting the Brighness channel, and sharpen within that only. What this does is adjust contrast only in brights and darks, and not the contrast between different colors, and works much better for sharpening without increasing noise at all. View the results at 200% and watch high contrast areas - if 'halos' appear, you're going too far, so back off some. Noise can be treated a couple of different ways. You know about blurring within color channels, which can help, but try it in different image modes like RGB or CMYK too - noise differs from camera to camera, and some sensors tend to favor green noise over red, for instance. Additionally, you can select the color itself that gives you the worst problems and blur that (I usually prefer the Noise/Median command in Photoshop for this, rather than any of the Blurring), or select the color where the noise is most visible within, like dark greys, and Median *that* instead. In other words, don't treat the color of the noise, but the color it's most visible within, which usually leaves the detail areas of your image alone. Again in Photoshop, you can select a color range like dark grey, but then use the polygonal lassoo tool and hold down the Alt key to *Deselect* key areas of the image, where you want to retain the most detail. Also look into using the History Brush, which will convert key areas back to original appearance before you started alterations. So what happens is, you blur out the noise, but then wipe the detail areas with the History Brush to restore them, and only them, to the starting point. That may give you an edge in a couple of areas - hope it helps. Good luck! - Al. -- To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
"Al Denelsbeck" wrote in message .8... "Kate" wrote in : As the odonata aren`t about yet in this part of the world, I have been concentrating on birds. I have built a hide but the closest I can get it to the feeders in the garden is about 18 feet, so the birds are but a small part of the image as a whole. That is why I crop. I have experimented, and when I stand about 8 ft away, images are sharper in the camera view screen and I would only have to crop the sides a little. Unfortunately, the birds won`t let me get that close! I have set the camera up so that the centre spot is where I want the focus, using Tv mode, and have also tried some of the pre-set modes. When it comes to the odonata season, I had hoped that I would be able to get good shots of them from several yards away, as, inevitably, they will perch in inaccessible places. Previously, using a Nikon CoolPix 4500, I had to wait until they perched nearby and then sneak up on them. I did get lots of good, sharp, shots that only needed minimal sharpening (they still needed cropping, but not so much), but missed many that I might have got with a zoom or telephoto lens. I know that with telephotos you get a very shallow depth of field, but with the 75-300mm at 300 it is so shallow I can get a bird`s beak in focus, but not the feet. I think there may be something that I am doing wrong or not doing at all, but cannot think what it might be. Any suggestions would be very helpful, please. I really don`t want to spend over £1K on a lens and find that, after all, it is my technique that is at fault. The 75-300 softens a little bit at the 300mm end, and this is typical of most zooms. However, it usually sharpens up if you're using an aperture of f11 or f16. Which will also help your depth of field. As the aperture is reduced in size (the f-number increasing), your depth of field will increase. Small errors in focus can also be compensated for in this way. The problem this leads to is that your shutter speed will become even slower. The IS in the lens will assist this, but I'd recommend using a tripod instead. This may lead to a couple of additional problems: 1. The subject is moving faster than the shutter speed will be able to catch sharply. Not much you can do about this, except try to get more light on your subject. 2. If the camera is on a setting allowing it to choose the ISO, it may be defaulting down to a high speed such as 800 or 1600, which will increase image noise by a considerable amount. I would suggest setting ISO within the range of 100-400, which should keep image quality higher. But this means the shutter speed may remain slow... And that's the problem of nature photographers everywhere :-(. Trust me, I deal with this all the time. Eventually, you seek subjects that you can exploit better. Or start looking at using strobes, especially with extenders or multiple strobes set up around your subject for more natural- looking light... At greater distances or with smaller subjects, don't trust autofocus. The focus sensor may be either not accurate enough, or the subject so small that the sensor isn't getting the subject at all, but the background. Go with manual focus, and if the subject is close, use your Depth Of Field Preview on the 300D to examine the subject for necessary focus (another fun thing to do, since the viewfinder will darken down when you do this). As for getting closer focus, an inexpensive set of extension tubes will shorten the close-focusing distance of that lens (which is just under 2 meters, right?). They have no lens elements so will not effect the image quality, nor is it required to go with expensive or OEM makes - however, they *will* reduce the light a little bit, like closing down the aperture another stop. I have a set of three Kenkos that work just fine with every lens I own, including the non-IS version of your lens. Do a websearch on macro work and you'll learn more about extension tubes. Sharpening: Try converting to LAB and selecting the Brighness channel, and sharpen within that only. What this does is adjust contrast only in brights and darks, and not the contrast between different colors, and works much better for sharpening without increasing noise at all. View the results at 200% and watch high contrast areas - if 'halos' appear, you're going too far, so back off some. Noise can be treated a couple of different ways. You know about blurring within color channels, which can help, but try it in different image modes like RGB or CMYK too - noise differs from camera to camera, and some sensors tend to favor green noise over red, for instance. Additionally, you can select the color itself that gives you the worst problems and blur that (I usually prefer the Noise/Median command in Photoshop for this, rather than any of the Blurring), or select the color where the noise is most visible within, like dark greys, and Median *that* instead. In other words, don't treat the color of the noise, but the color it's most visible within, which usually leaves the detail areas of your image alone. Again in Photoshop, you can select a color range like dark grey, but then use the polygonal lassoo tool and hold down the Alt key to *Deselect* key areas of the image, where you want to retain the most detail. Also look into using the History Brush, which will convert key areas back to original appearance before you started alterations. So what happens is, you blur out the noise, but then wipe the detail areas with the History Brush to restore them, and only them, to the starting point. That may give you an edge in a couple of areas - hope it helps. Good luck! - Al. To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net Lots of helpful advice and useful suggestions, so thanks for that. I have mostly been using shutter speed mode (Canon call it Tv mode) and trying to get f.8 by using a higher ISO, but even at 400 ISO I notice a considerable increase in noise, so I do try to use 200 ISO or lower most of the time. Unfortunately, with photographing odonata, the option to set up flash units is impossible. However, this is compensated for somewhat by their preference for warm, sunny conditions. They do move very quickly and change direction in an instant, so I have to wait until they have perched, but I still like to use a high shutter speed if possible. As I mentioned earlier, they tend to use awkward places to land (for a photographer), say, reeds in the middle of ponds, or outer branches high up in trees. Hence my need for a zoom lens : you never know how near or far they will be when they come to rest. With the bird photography, I did consider getting some remote flash units, but as I understand that they are triggered by the flash unit on the camera and I am in a hide with just the lens sticking out, I didn`t think it would work. Regarding choosing less demanding subjects, I _like_ photographing dragonflies and birds! Perhaps a teleconverter would be a possibility, and certainly cheaper than a longer zoom lens, although I have read that with the lens I have already, they do not give quite such good results as with lenses with better optics. Angela : thanks for the tip about Paint Shop Pro. I already have Photoshop v.6, Photoshop Elements v.2, and Corel PhotoPaint vs.9 and 11 and don`t know if I could stand having yet another program! I have been looking on line for plug-ins and stand-alone software that deals with jpeg artefacts and noise, and am trying some demo versions. Still, as a perfectionist, I feel as if I should get it right in the first place without having to make extensive corrections. As regards using manual focus, I am not sure that I would have the time : with odonata and birds you have to seize the moment sometimes. Al : I am going to try your suggestion of converting to Lab and sharpening in the Brightness channel, although it does seem that shadows and darker areas generally give the most problems, regardless of colour, so sharpening in the Brightness channel might make it worse? I checked out information on extension tubes and as they reduce the focussing distance, doesn`t that mean I would have to get _closer_ to the subject? What I was hoping to achieve was to almost fill the picture with the sharply-focussed subject (a bird or a dragonfly, for example) whilst still remaining, say, 5.5 metres away. Am I asking for too much on a limited budget? I think Joseph is probably right when he says that having to crop so much is my main problem, and I gather that he does not think the 100-400mm lens I suggested earlier would be sufficient? Even with a teleconverter, Joseph? And thanks for your sympathy BTW :-) I shall persevere and hope to get it right before the odonata season starts in May, but any further advice would be much appreciated. Regards Kate |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
FS: Schneider Large-Format Lens TRADE!!! | Bill Gillooly | General Equipment For Sale | 2 | February 20th 05 07:43 AM |
FS: Schneider Large-Format Lens TRADE!!! | Bill Gillooly | Large Format Equipment For Sale | 2 | February 20th 05 07:43 AM |
Nikon D70 + Auto Mode | Anirudh | Digital SLR Cameras | 10 | February 1st 05 08:32 PM |
Focal plane vs. leaf shutters in MF SLRs | KM | Medium Format Photography Equipment | 724 | December 7th 04 10:58 AM |
Copy/Macro Lens for this camera | Mr. Bill | Large Format Equipment For Sale | 0 | February 16th 04 08:18 PM |